


To See, Perchance to Observe

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock BBC
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare, Shakespeare Quotations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-15
Updated: 2011-04-15
Packaged: 2017-10-19 15:14:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/202252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karma is a bitch. So is Shakespeare. When Sherlock is forced to confront the Bard after a Shakespeare-inspired string of murders, his feigned knowledge of the Folio seems poised to bite him on the arse. Luckily, John Watson remembers his English Literature lessons. Sherlock may soon find that good ol' Will holds more resonance than he previously thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To See, Perchance to Observe

“Do you know a lot about Shakespeare?” Lestrade had asked.

“Obviously.” Sherlock had lied.

Then there was the woman lying dead in a Brixton back alley with her head smashed in and archaisms scrawled all over her naked body, death threats written in iambic pentameter. The phone call, the request for assistance, the admission that Scotland Yard were over their head with this one and they needed an expert. An expert well versed in the scribblings of William Shakespeare, as one of the ’Yard’s lackeys had translated the archaistic language to be.

 _Shit_ , thought Sherlock Holmes, whose idle boast had come back, teeth bared, salivating for his arse.

So he strides in as overconfident as ever, a vision in deep purple amongst the metals and greys of the Scotland Yard headquarters, and demands for the collective works of Shakespeare. Every last play, sonnet, margin jotting and _thought_ of the great man, sent to 221B, if you don’t mind; his own copies are _far too annotated_ to be of any use to him in this matter. Give him a day and he’ll be back with his findings, please call if anyone else dies another gruesome Bard-inspired death, thank you.

The boxes arrive later that day; there’s a welcome absence of phone calls. Sherlock waits by the window, watching them leave, then fronts up to his adversary like the arrogant underdog in a Western motion picture. Tipping them over and sending the volumes spilling out across the floor gives him some comfort but that is quickly dashed when he contemplates the words bound up inside them. Disregarding his High School English lessons had seemed a great idea at the time, when there were no dead bodies involved and teachers could simply send you out for continually correcting their grammar. Deleting the knowledge he had once lorded over his distinctly average classmates is now appearing to have been a wrong decision.

Sherlock Holmes doesn’t make wrong decisions.

Sherlock Holmes also doesn’t do Shakespeare.

He decides to tackle this situation from a sitting position; he crosses his legs and folds his arms, eyes jumping from hardback to hardback. Picking up the nearest text with the shortest title, Sherlock begins to flick through the pages. He winces at the language.

 _Page 95; Act Two, Scene Two (??). Deductions so far:_

 _• Hamlet appears to be the main character: he has the most lines.  
• The title of the play is his name.  
• Who has the name Hamlet anyway? That’s ridiculous.  
• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern know Hamlet, somehow.  
• They are having a conversation.  
• THIS IS POINTLESS._

The pages meet his forehead forcefully. Then a door key rattles in a lock; John is home.

“John…” Sherlock utters out loud as he listens to his flatmate trudging up the stairs. He must have his heavier briefcase with him as his steps are more languid than usual; it was a busy afternoon and John feels guilty for leaving early even though he’s had the time booked off for blogging since a couple of weeks ago. March the third, it was.

“Sherlock? You home?” John calls, pausing at the bend in the staircase. The detective does not respond but the boxes indicate his presence for him. He’s proven right about the briefcase when John finally appears in the doorway and drops the offending article with a grateful thump.

“You’re _reading_?”

“Yes.” Sherlock replies, raising the book so John can get a view of the cover, “Well. Sort of.” Then suddenly his eyes narrow. “I do _read_. I read!”

“Yes,” John echoes with amusement colouring the timbre of his voice, “but not _Hamlet_. What’s brought this on?”

“I’m just staggeringly intelligent.”

“Of course. And _why else_?”

“I… enjoy… reading? Anyway that’s not important- the point _is_ , I must get back to this: Hamlet and Rosenstern are having a vital conversation.”

“Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, you mean.”

Sherlock glances down at his text, eyebrows furrowed, “That’s what I said. Rosencrantz. And Guildenstern.”

“ _No_ , you didn’t. Unless that was your idea of a compound nickname, which… I don’t think.” John chuckles gently, pacing over towards his flatmate. “Be honest with me, Sherlock: why are you doing this?”

“I’m just-” Sherlock begins, meets John’s gaze, then falters. John sits himself down amongst the volumes, opposite the man with his face cast down towards the pages. “It’s for a case.” The detective eventually admits to Hamlet.

“A case?”

“Yes. Lestrade’s team found a body covered in lines from Shakespeare, but they’re out of their depth. As… am I.”

“What?” John seeks clarification not of the case, but of Sherlock’s admission of… he’s not even quite sure what Sherlock just divulged, but it merits elucidation.

There’s a long pause. A very long pause. It’s almost like an interval; one of those embarrassing intervals where John can only watch everyone else mill about, collect their drinks they took the time and common sense to reserve beforehand, while he stays stuck in his chair, reluctant to leave his coat or disrupt the line of contented people blocking his exiting of the row. Except there’s no theatre, only Sherlock Holmes sat in front of him, legs crossed and chin low. John wishes he had ice cream.

“I don’t actually…” Sherlock begins in monotone, “…know Shakespeare.” He looks up. “At all.”

“You _don’t know_ \- what do you mean, you ‘don’t know Shakespeare’? Everyone knows Shakespeare.”

“Thank you, John. That is most comforting.”

“No- I didn’t mean-”

“I know what you meant. And I do _know_ Shakespeare… ‘To be or not to be’, ‘Alas poor Yorick’… I know he existed.”

“Those are both in Hamlet.” John gestures to the copy in Sherlock’s grasp.

Sherlock looks up, “Are they? I wouldn’t know.”

“Who doesn’t know…”

“I don’t. So I have before me a problem, in that Lestrade thinks that I do. Therefore, in order for my reputation to stay in tact… I have to make some sense of this. Preferably _soon_.”

John leans forward, canting his head to the left like a primary school teacher preparing to deal with a difficult child, “So what don’t you get?”

“Everything.” Sherlock groans.

“Really? I thought this would be right up your alley. It’s difficult, speaks in archaisms that normal people can’t understand, seems to be everywhere…”

“You’re not funny, John. This is literature; it’s entirely different. There’s no deduction here… it isn’t even _real_.”

“But this is for a case; that makes it real. The only way you’re going to be able to figure out the motives of that real life killer is by pretending for a little while. And anyway, at least it’s only Shakespeare. It could be worse: you could have a Ulysses killer.”

Sherlock looks at John like he’s just announced plans to burn all his knitwear, then back down at the volume in his hands. He flicks through the pages in a vain attempt to find something that doesn’t appear entirely Greek to him. Actually, that would be preferable: at least he understands Greek.

“But it doesn’t even make any _sense_.” Sherlock whines, “‘I am but mad north-northwest: when the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw’… What is that supposed to mean? Compass points? Wind? Birds? Construction tools? Could this sentence contain any _more_ confusing elements?”

“He’s saying that he’s not actually mad, he’s only pretending… sort of like what you do, you know? ‘Hiding in plain sight’ and all that.” John smiles, but finds his mirth returned by a grimace.

“Please don’t compare me to Hamlet. He seems dull.”

“Hamlet isn’t dull! He’s the archetypal…” John tails off; the death stare intensifies. “I did English Literature for A Level. Forgive me for still remembering some of it.”

Sherlock says nothing and that’s enough for John to twig.

“Okay,” He amends, “let’s not jump straight into Hamlet. We’ll start with something a little… easier, I suppose. How many have you got here?” He swoops his arm around to indicate the bombsite surrounding them.

Sherlock shrugs, “This is supposedly everything. Must he have been really so productive? One would be manageable. But… fifty million, not so much.”

“Stop complaining. Can you find Much Ado About Nothing near you? I’m surrounded by Kings.”

They begin to search. Sherlock isn’t quite sure what he’s looking for but acts like he does anyway. He picks up text after text, each with the unnerving smell of ancient paper and each making absolutely no sense to him at all. John is doing much of the same – picking up, then discarding – but with a deeper sort of intensity that Sherlock’s only seen utilised at crime scenes or medical examinations. He sighs, contemplating the task the doctor has just set him; usually it’s the other way round.

“‘Much Ado About…’ that doesn’t even make sen-“ Suddenly his eye catches something, “John! Look!” The man in question looks up to see Sherlock brandishing a heavy volume with the title ‘King John’ emblazoned on in gold lettering, “I never knew there was a King John. I hope he dies.” He begins to leaf through the tome; John lets out an exhausted sigh as he continues to search.

“Sherlock- will you _please_ help-”

“You do! Look, John: you die!” Suddenly John finds himself inhaling the musty smell of barely-disturbed pages, with Sherlock’s index finger prodding the type fiercely. Then it is withdrawn again and the Holmes booms out: “‘There is so hot a summer in my bosom,/That all my bowels crumble up to dust:/I am a scribbled form, drawn with a pen/Upon a parchment, and against this fire/Do I shrink up.’ Ha! There’s some more talking and then you die.”

“That’s… wonderful. I’m really so, so glad.”

John, ignoring Sherlock’s frankly rather _disturbing_ gleeful enthusiasm about his death, continues to move his hands through the books like he’s dragging them through a rock-pool. At some points his fingers catch, perhaps on a tragedy, perhaps a comedy, but never his final destination. He’s about to give up – he feels Sherlock might just be sitting on it, but is wary of moving his hands there – when Antony and Cleopatra kindly move over to reveal the object of John’s search. At exactly the same time Sherlock holds up a copy of _exactly the same play_. Really.

“Is this it?” He asks, eyes fixed on the two masked lovers on the cover.

John brandishes his identical text in response. “Yes. Seems that whoever put this box together gave you two of these by accident.”

“How opportune.” Sherlock remarks, sounding not at all grateful.

Rather.

The detective watches his friend with suspicious eyes; he watches him flick through the pages, pause, flick through again, murmur under his breath.

“So what do we do now.” Sherlock opens his copy up to the exact middle, glances at the incomprehensible text, then closes it again. “The title doesn’t seem all that promising. I do hope for Shakespeare’s sake that this isn’t just a play about nothing.”

“It’s not.” John counters, “It’s a play about love.”

There is a snort.

“Does anyone die?”

“No, not techni- just no. No one dies.”

“Oh _dear_.” Sherlock mutters. He crinkles up his nose in a sort of _‘that’s not very helpful for either of us, is it’_ expression. “I think we should do King John.”

“We are not- _we’re not doing King John_. I don’t even know King John.”

Air whistles through Sherlock’s teeth in a gesture that somehow makes Sherlock’s face ten times more punchable: a feat that John didn’t even think possible until about five seconds ago. He’d honestly thought Sherlock had reached the pinnacle of annoyingness, taken a photo, jabbed his flagpole into the ground, bought the bloody t-shirt and set up a sodding gift shop… but _no_. Apparently not. There are yet more delights in store for Doctor John Watson as he accompanies Sherlock Holmes on this groundbreaking expedition. _Hurrah_.

“Well, that’s disappointing. You don’t even know a play with your own name in the title? I have to say I expected more of you, but there you go.” Sherlock chirps, and John rather fancies building a time machine simply to hold good ol’ Will at gunpoint and force him to write a play called ‘Sherlock’ about a know-it-all who DIES HORRIFICALLY AND PAINFULLY.

But he can’t. Instead he kneads his brow with thumb and forefinger and resigns to the fact that he is conversing with a man who is not _human_. “Could we just get back to the task in hand?” Sherlock nods, smirking to himself. John closes his eyes, half in thanks, half just to block out the detective’s arsing face. “Thank you.”

 _So that only took twenty million hours._

“Right. Now it’ll be easier if we read this through. So… I’ll be Claudio, and you can be Hero.”

“What did I say about making people into heroes, John.”

John looks up, eyes dead, and says nothing. Sherlock convulses into a snort.

“ _Fine_. Those _are_ easier parts, but if you’re going to be like this we’ll do Beatrice and Benedick.”

“I’ll be Benedick.” Sherlock jumps in with unnerving rapidity.

“Right, okay, well I suppose that does seem to fit... Let’s go straight to Act Five, Scene Four. I am _not_ arguing with you any more than I have to. How about we start just after the revealing of Hero as the bride?”

The look that returns John’s own eager one is coloured with an almost reluctant confusion.

“You do know the plot, right?”

Sherlock narrows his eyes as if it were supposed to be obvious, “ _No_.”

“Seriously? I mean- come _on_ , you must have at least studied it for O Level. I did, and I can remember it.”

“Deleted.” Sherlock enunciates, tapping his cranium.

That would be right.

“Alright, _fine_. I’m not going through the whole thing, but basically Beatrice and Benedick love each other but just won’t admit it. So everyone else clubs together and tells each of them that they heard the other say that they love them… okay, I’m not being _completely_ clear here, but you can get the gist. So they’ve been pretty much at each other’s throats the whole duration of the play, until this moment when it turns out that they…” John looks up to find Sherlock’s gaze locked on to his own with a disturbing and indiscernible intensity, “…love each other.” A cough allows him to collect himself, settle his thoughts onto the task in hand rather than on the equally as indistinguishable feeling building in his stomach. “Right. Would you rather, uh, stand… or are we okay sitting?”

“This is hardly a performance, John. I don’t even know why we’re doing this.”

“It’ll help, I promise. This how the actors do it, or so I hear. Learning aloud. And you know what DI Jones said about you-”

“DI Jones is an idiot.”

“But it is sort of true-”

“Do I start, or do you?”

John scans the page until the words eventually leap out at him, “You do. On ‘Soft and fair, Friar’.”

Sherlock clears his throat and begins with impeccable intonation, spine straight and shoulders back as he holds the book up to chin level: “‘Which is Beatrice?’ But surely you’re right in front of me; I can see who you are.” He snaps out of character; John groans.

“No, but- in the play I’m wearing a mask so you don’t know which one I am.”

“But you’re not wearing one now, so technically I do kn-”

“ _Sherlock_ , stop it- let’s just carry on, shall we? ‘I answer to that name. What is your will?’”

“We should have done Hamlet.” Sherlock interjects, “At least I have a skull.”

“Sherlock!”

“I do apologise.” Comes the response with no hint of remorse whatsoever, “‘Do not you love me?’”

John coughs, feeling somehow defensive, “‘Why no, no more than reason.’”

“‘Why, then your uncle and the Prince and Claudio/Have been deceived; they swore you did’– I don’t understand this. Since when was there a Prince? You didn’t say anything about a Prince.”

“The Prince is Don Pedro.” John counters, voice weary. The prospect of explaining the idea of Sicilian princes to Sherlock Holmes is not an appealing one. In fact, he’s starting to wonder what the hell he got into this all _for_. The beauty of hearing _that voice_ recite _those words_ hardly outweighs the humongous faff he knows it’ll take to get there.

“Don Pe-?”

“ _Don’t_.” John finds himself almost leaping forwards, as if physical restraint will ever stop the overactive mind of his flatmate. “Just… don’t, okay. It doesn’t matter. Don Pedro isn’t important right now. If we can just get this tiny little scene done, then I’m going to leave you to it because I can’t be arsed with this.”

Sherlock has the audacity to look offended.

“Awww, _John_! Why?”

There is no verbal response to his regression into infantilism, nothing but a Death Stare. The curve of Sherlock’s mouth droops; he softens, the joke seems no longer amusing when faced with John looking genuinely, honestly annoyed. Usually the ascension of eyebrows and the folding of arms are like catalysts to Sherlock Holmes, but John is different. As much as he is loathe to admit it.

“I didn’t realise this meant so much to you.” Sherlock eventually contributes to the building silence.

“It doesn’t.” John is quick to dismiss with a wave of his hand and a dumping of his book in his lap, “I haven’t read Shakespeare in years.”

“You know more than me.”

“Yeah, well isn’t that something. Strange how it doesn’t seem like it right now.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Every _bloody_ thing that I do… you just have to add your own opinions to everything, don’t you? I’m trying to help you here, but I’m obviously not doing enough, am I? If you don’t want my help then just say, because I’m not carrying on with this just for you to poke fun and be so bloody _ungrateful_.” John snaps, gaze fixed on the kitchen table. It’s piled high with scientific apparatus; he doesn’t think he’s ever seen the bare surface since they moved in. When he gave Sherlock permission to monopolise everything, he has no idea.

It seems the great man has been silenced at last. John is glad for the oasis.

“I wasn’t trying to upset you.” Sherlock almost apologises, voice quieter than John’s ever heard. It’s hardly even audible and this unnerves him.

“I’m not upset.” The dismissal is abrupt. “‘Do not you love me?’”

Sherlock raises his head to find John’s own bowed to the printed pages.

“Pardon?” It takes a moment for the words to register; this is most unlike him. For a second he almost thought that perhaps… John might have… No. “Oh. ‘Troth no, no more than reason.’”

“‘Why, then my cousin, Margaret, and Ursula/Are much deceived; for they did swear you did.’” John inclines his head minutely, not taking his eyes off the page. “Beatrice’s cousin is Hero. Margaret and Ursula are both servants.”

“‘They swore that you were sick for me.’”

“‘They swore that you were well-nigh dead for me!’” The doctor suddenly bursts out, raising his head and staring at Sherlock. If either of them were looking at John’s hands they would notice the tremble. But they are not.

“‘’Tis no such matter.’” Sherlock’s gaze is steady. “‘Then you do not love me?’”

“‘No, truly, but in friendly recompense.’”

“‘Come, cousin, I am sure you love the gentleman.’”

The pause that follows feels like the sick blankness of death. The two men divert their eyes to their respective texts; John swallows as if preparing to deliver news of a terminal illness.

“No, Sherlock, that isn’t your line. Leonato says that. Then Claudio-”

“John.” Suddenly there is an interjection, then the haphazard sound of books being separated to make room for a Consulting Detective. When Sherlock speaks again his voice is closer but John does not look up. “I’m not doing this on purpose.”

“So you just _can’t help it_ , then. That makes everything better, obviously.”

“No, I mean. I’m not… very… I don’t apologise.”

John mentally affixes the _‘…I’m Sherlock Holmes’_ to the end of that utterance.

“I’ve noticed. Practice makes perfect, though.”

“What do you want me to do? I’m doing this, isn’t that-”

“I don’t _know_ , okay. I just wish you wouldn’t…” John looks up; shit, his face is closer than the sound tricked him into believing it was, “…do _this_. It makes it really hard for me to stay annoyed with you.”

Sherlock smiles, “Sorry.”

 _Damn it, that bastard knows full well what he’s…_

“So you’ll apologise for that and not… _right_. I see.” John can’t help but return the smile. He’s the biggest twat ever and he knows it but there are some things you can’t control. Sherlock Holmes – and how John feels towards that man – certainly falls into that category.

“Shall we continue?” Sherlock enquires, voice bright and on the cusp of dissolving into sniggers. John, again, can do nothing else but smile and nod. Picking up his book, his eyes return to where they left off; he can hear Sherlock flicking the pages over to do the same.

“So after Beatrice and Benedick claim they don’t love each other, both Claudio and Hero produce love poems written by Benedick to Beatrice, and vice versa. So basically solid proof that they… uh…” For some reason John looks up at Sherlock, then can’t remember why he did. He reverts his stare to the page again. “Right. If you want to start from… from ‘A miracle!’”

“‘A miracle.’” Sherlock echoes almost in a disbelieving whisper; John doesn’t correct him on the inflection. Or at least he would if it weren’t for that bastard lump in his throat that just seems to have come out of nowhere. “‘Here’s our own hands against our hearts. Come, I will have thee; but, by this light, I take thee for pity.’”

Once again the situation prevents John from acting normally. He would love to comment on the link his brain just made: the link between Sherlock and Benedick and how it’s _oh so obvious_. No, he won’t settle down. He’s an enigma. John who had the offers but just couldn’t make it work; what was stopping him?

Well now it’s obvious. Everything is so obvious and it’s _horrible_ – perhaps that’s why Sherlock is so endlessly irritable. Having everything so plainly set out in front of him is possibly the worst feeling John thinks he’s experienced in his lifetime, and he’s got a few nasty ones to choose from. It’s not the realisation, not completely, although that’s part of it (he’ll deal with that later). It’s the comprehension that comes along with everything, the rattle of that penny as it completes its descent, the recognition that he’s spent far too long in the dark when the light switch was only one sightless grope away.

But still the lump remains in his throat. It’s hard enough to get his next line out, let alone to elucidate on the thoughts spinning round his head like atoms in the Hadron Collider.

“‘I would not deny you;’” John begins in a phlegm-y manner, clears his throat and continues: “but, by this good day, I yield upon great persuasion; and partly to save your life, for I was told you were in a consumption.’”

“I have been,” Sherlock utters out of nowhere, “but now I feel much better.”

“That’s not a…” John looks up at Sherlock, then down at the text, then up once more, then down again, “Sherlock, that’s… not a line.”

“I know.”

The _destinatio in potentia_ seems almost paralysing. John prides himself on being swift in situations like these – well, not like these, he’s hardly experienced _this_ particular phenomenon before – in reacting quickly and efficiently and securing the most beneficial outcome for him and his comrades. But this… this is something entirely different. Perhaps he’s been away from the Army, from routine, from instruction, for far too long. Perhaps he’s just never been in love before.

Oh, Christ. Christ, sodding, buggery, bloody, arse, balls and shit.

The words on the page blur into one another and John realises he’s been staring at that particular stage direction for far too long. The same one that he just knows Sherlock has his eyes on too. Unless they’re on him. He looks up: _yes_ , yes they are. Sherlock is staring at him. The doctor swallows thickly.

“Right. Then there’s… there’s… there’s the _stage… direction_. But you- but you don’t… you don’t-”

“‘Peace,’” The Consulting Detective mutters with a quiet intensity, “‘I will stop your mouth.’”

And with that Sherlock surges forward to capture John’s lips with a kiss. It’s a turn of events that somehow manages to be both completely expected and overwhelming simultaneously; suddenly the world feels like it just shifted a little, not enough to send books flying off shelves and experiments crashing to the floor, but enough for the lives of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson – two men with their toes over the edge of a precipice, staring down through the clouds – to change irrevocably and _perfectly_.

Someway, through insecurity or fear of the unknown, it’s all over as quick as it begins. John’s lips no longer feel that glorious pressure, softness and absolute bloody _brilliance_ ; Sherlock retreats back to his haunches, breathing heavily; both their minds feel clogged with excess of thought and arousal, it seems insane that they even stopped.

“Do that again.” John instructs simply, all thoughts of William Shakespeare abandoned like a loose handkerchief in the wind.

Then, as if uncorked by the three words, a whole year’s sexual tension spills out. John looks at Sherlock and Sherlock looks at John; there’s barely a split second of hesitation between the invitation and the action.

John finds himself being lowered down onto years of literary genius but it’s rather hard to care about propriety when he’s being accompanied on his descent into hardbacks by a genius of his own. This John has a fire inside him too, oh yes; he may not be a King but he’s being royally ravished and that feels a bit bloody good. There are hands, lips, fingertips, tongues. Eyes close, mouths open to let out gasps or breathless puffs of air. There is John, there is Sherlock and there is Shakespeare; this might just be the strangest threesome that the world has ever seen and it’s fucking wonderful.

The action is unconscious but welcomed when John finds himself wrapping his legs around Sherlock’s own. Hands grip at expensive purple cotton, then suddenly… a ringtone. Sherlock’s ringtone.

Many, many expletives are uttered. It’s mostly God who gets the blame until Sherlock straightens up and greets the caller with an unnecessary repetition of his name and an “Oh, Lestrade”. A few murmurs and back channel noises of agreement later, he signs off with an “I’ll be there soon”. John groans.

“I have to,” Sherlock sits back on his feet, “they’ve sent Anderson home especially.”

“That’s actually rather considerate of you.”

Sherlock pulls a self-satisfied face: “I know.”

There’s a pause. A collecting pause, a contemplating pause, a ‘so I just snogged the living daylights out of my flatmate, what the hell do we do now’ pause. John’s next utterance seems to answer the question hovering between them in the air still thick with their hot breaths and slowly cooling arousal.

“You will… come back, won’t you?” He asks and immediately regrets it. Somehow it’s the right question to ask, even if a relatively senseless one, and Sherlock lets his fingers drift along John’s thigh in a gesture that could possibly, maybe just be a teensy bit affectionate.

“I always do.”

John grins.

“Mostly.” Sherlock amends, “When there’s tea.”

 _Note to self_ , John Watson thinks as he pulls Sherlock Holmes back down onto him, _buy some more teabags_. His fingers wind round dark brown curls and he feels wet lips on his collarbone; he reckons it’d be alright to stay like this for eternity, probably. They’d have to persuade Mrs Hudson to make deliveries of toast and tea, perhaps to clear up the books, but it could be doable, definitely.

Oh, the books. Shakespeare. _Yes_.

“Oh, by the way,” John finally speaks through his smile, shifting his position to halt his impalement on King Lear, “how do you find Shakespeare, now?”

There’s a chuckle that seems to rumble through John’s entire body.

“Absolutely _nonsensical_.” Sherlock grins into the doctor’s neck.


End file.
